


Free Agents

by Lefaym



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-17
Updated: 2009-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-08 02:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and the Doctor are both free agents. Sometimes, they even pretend that they like it that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Agents

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to used_songs and verasteine from LJ for betaing.

The Doctor felt Jack before he saw him: that jarring tingle in his second bilateral sub-cortex, and the strange twinge in his left arm—an alert, telling him that something was not-quite-right, that time that wasn't quite in flux like it should be.

Instinct told him to turn around and head back to the TARDIS, even if it was London in 2379 and only twelve hours until the Sixteenth Carnival of Griganath. There was always the Diamond Forest on the Second Moon of Dandon V, or the Titallian Lights in the Ravon Cluster of the Hathron Galaxy, and—

"Oomph!"

He wasn't sure what he became aware of first—the ground beneath him slamming against his back, or the tingle in his sub-cortex becoming a definite _itch_ in response to the weight on his chest. The Doctor opened one eye, even though he didn't really need to, and saw, as expected, Captain Jack Harkness splayed crossways over his torso, his legs twitching slightly. The arrow sticking out of Jack's back was less expected, but not wholly unsurprising, all things considered.

As the Doctor tried to refill his lungs and get his brain under control, two Xaresian warriors approached them, bows in hand. One of them kicked Jack in the side, hard enough to make the Doctor wince in sympathy, even though he knew that Jack couldn't feel it right now.

"Hmph," the warrior grunted, hir skin darkening to a deep purple. "It's done." Ze looked down at the Doctor, as though only just noticing his presence. "Sorry," ze muttered.

"Well, I should say so!" the Doctor started. "You can't just go around—"

The warrior turned and stalked away, hir companion following. The Doctor sighed as best he could with Jack still pressing down on him, wriggled around until he was able to get a grip on the arrow, and pulled it free. As he did so, he sensed bone and muscle and lung begin—impossibly—to repair themselves, which sent another jolt down the Doctor's left arm, and that just wasn't _fair_, not after he'd been crushed like this.

Jack returned to life with a gasp, his ribcage expanding, squashing the Doctor further into the ground beneath them.

"Hello, Captain," said the Doctor, when he'd finally regained enough breath to speak. His voice was still slightly strangled, but not too bad under the circumstances.

Jack turned his head. "Huh?" He paused, frowning. "Doctor?"

"Last time I checked."

"_Doctor_?"

"Yep, still me."

"Haven't seen _you_ for a while."

"Well, you know how it is. Hardly ever stick around in one place long enough to catch up with anyone, really."

Jack grinned. "You seem to be stuck now."

"Er, yes, about that—do you think you could stand up? Even Time Lords need to breathe, you know."

"Ah, Doctor, you spoil all my fun." But Jack stood up anyway, offering a hand to help the Doctor to his own feet.

"So," said Jack, when they were both more or less vertical again. "How long's it been for you?"

"Since I last saw you? That would've been the Daleks and taking the Earth back home, so... two Earth years. Or so. Depending on whether or not you count that time loop."

Jack looked thoughtful. "Then you haven't..."

"I haven't what?"

"Doesn't matter."

The Doctor felt rather affronted. "I thought I was supposed to be the mysterious one."

"A man needs to have his secrets."

Jack stretched, smiling smugly, and started walking, indicating for the Doctor to follow. The streets were mostly deserted, tradition dictating that Londoners stayed at home in the hours before the Carnival. The Doctor tried to ignore the niggling shocks that were now irritating his left calf muscle as his central hyper-cortex rudely objected to Jack's existence.

"So, ah..." The Doctor paused. "What about you, Jack? Torchwood still running around trying to save the world from itself and the occasional alien threat?"

"Hey! We weren't that bad—not all the time, anyway."

"Weren't? No more little teams for you then?"

Jack's smile wasn't quite as wide as it should have been. "You know me, Doctor. I'm a free agent at heart."

"And I suppose those Xaresians a few minutes ago were trying to limit your free agency somehow?"

Jack had the good grace to look slightly sheepish. "Yeah, well. Sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?"

"Okay, so I seduced their Second Minister. How was I to know that would offend some of them?"

"Seduced? But Jack—the Xaresians are asexual!"

Jack grinned at him. "Not anymore, they're not."

In spite of himself, the Doctor grinned back at him. "That's brilliant, that is. A whole species about to redefine itself—or a few of its members will, anyway. Who knows where that could lead? New civilisations, a new social order, new—"

He broke off abruptly as Jack grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him into a small alcove in the wall of a building. The Doctor winced. Both his arms were tingling now, and something very strange indeed was happening in his lower back.

"Uh, Jack?" the Doctor managed.

"Shh." Jack spoke in a low voice. "The guards who killed me earlier just turned into this street. I'd like to avoid any... awkward questions."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Why don't we just—"

"—shoot them?"

"No!"

"Can't do that anyway," Jack told him. "Might start a war if I retaliate now."

There was a shout from the other end of the street. "Damn it!" said Jack. "They've seen us."

The Doctor grinned. "Ready to run, Jack?"

"Always, Doctor."

As they took off down the road together, the Doctor couldn't help but feel slightly relieved. Running always helped clear his head, and it provided a nice outlet for all of that tingly twitchy energy that coursed through him when Jack was around. Dodging the arrows from the Xaresian crossbows helped too. Fascinating things, those crossbows: a combination of psychic and physical controls, modulated by discrete units of—

"This way!" Jack called out, grabbing the Doctor's hand and pulling him down a side street. The Doctor wasn't quite sure if the jolt he felt was the pain near-dislocation of his shoulder, or the sudden inverse firing of his tertiary temporal lobe.

Then Jack was pulling him up some steps, around a corner, underneath a concrete tunnelly-thing that smelled strangely of Dandonese fireworks, into a pub, and finally, through a small green door that led to a modest bedroom.

Jack pressed a few buttons on his wrist-strap, and the Doctor felt something shift around him. A minor time-lock, he guessed—no barrier to him, but enough throw the Xaresians off the scent.

"Just like old times, eh, Doctor?"

For a moment, the Doctor found himself smiling. "Oh, yes." His smile faded. "Well, sort of." There had always been someone else with them, before. Rose. Martha. Donna, and Mickey, and Sarah Jane...

"Doctor? You all right?" Jack was looking at him intently, almost as thought he was worried. The Doctor's left heart twisted painfully, his spine felt like it was on fire, and—

"Yes, of course I'm all right, why wouldn't I be all right?" he said quickly. "I'm great. Brilliant."

"Really? You looked—" Jack broke off and shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

"Right then, glad we got that sorted."

"It's just—you're not travelling with anyone at the moment, are you?"

"No. Not anymore."

"Too bad. Your friends are usually kinda cute." Jack's voice was soft and sad, the leer that would usually accompany those words strangely absent.

The Doctor shrugged. "I guess I'm like you, Jack. Free agent."

"I guess so," said Jack.

"It's a good old life."

"You miss them though, don't you?" said Jack quietly.

The Doctor tried to turn away then, but Jack caught his eye, and he found that he couldn't. "Yeah," he said finally, his voice little more than a whisper. "Yeah, I do."

Jack nodded, and raised a hand to the Doctor's face.

Very slowly, and all in the space of a single moment, the burning in his spine exploded, sharp hot pins and needles radiating out from each vertebrae, into his arms, his chest, his stomach, his legs, his groin. Inside his head, the Doctor felt his right quantum nucleus twist in a very odd way, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and it was so disconcerting that he didn't realise at first that Jack was kissing him.

And when he did finally notice, it was too late to pull away, because somehow, his hands were clutched tightly around the lapels of Jack's coat, and his lips were parting, and Jack's tongue was pushing forward, hot breath tickling the inside of his mouth. Even as his body and his brain cried out in protest, the Doctor pulled Jack closer, as though they'd done this a thousand times before, and then, suddenly, it seemed like there was no protest at all, as though every atom of him was _supposed_ to be screaming out in this way, and he just hadn't realised it before.

Somehow, it didn't seem wrong at all that Jack was pushing him back onto the bed as they fumbled and tore at each others' clothes, that Jack's mouth was on his neck, that their legs were tangled in a way that should have been awkward, but somehow seemed to work. His skin burned, his synapses fired all over the place, and the Doctor knew that he should be in agony, except he'd been in agony before, and this wasn't it.

This was heat, and life, and need, and flesh, and teeth, and hands, and mouths, and all of it was brilliant, even as it seared him and tore him to shreds. Jack was inside him and around him, pulling him away from everything and laying him bare. The Doctor closed his eyes and gave himself over to it completely.

Afterwards, they lay back together, silent for several long minutes. The Doctor could hear Jack's breathing, long and slow, almost as if he was asleep, though he knew that Jack couldn't be, not with that much energy in him, twisting the flow of time and space.

"I didn't choose it," said Jack suddenly, staring at the ceiling.

"Choose what?"

"Being on my own again. Free agent."

"Ah."

"There was a Rytellanian cruise ship on a diplomatic mission," Jack continued. "Five months ago. Thought I'd take my latest team up there, let them enjoy the party, give them a chance to study some xenobiology."

"What happened?"

Jack's smile was humourless. "Gas leak. Not harmful to Rytellanians, so no warning that anything was wrong. We all went to sleep, and I woke up in the morgue. They didn't wake up at all."

"I'm sorr—"

"You're sorry. I know. You're so, so sorry."

"Really, Jack, I am. So very sorry."

"I _know_."

The Doctor felt Jack recoil from him slightly, and for a moment he remained still, unsure of how to respond. But then, hesitantly, he lifted himself onto one elbow, and placed his palm flat against Jack's chest, over his heart. When he felt the jolt pass through his arm and into his body, he welcomed it, opening himself to the energy created by the fixed point inside Jack, this thing that shouldn't exist. He shuddered, and then pushed himself forward, lowering himself over Jack and pressing their mouths together.

He still wasn't sure why that seemed to work so much better than words, but it'd do for now.

***  
***

They didn't touch as they walked back towards the TARDIS. Jack was, the Doctor realised, _giving him space_, to use a human phrase for it.

The Doctor's limbs were still feeling the occasional twitch and twist, and his brain was still, well, not misfiring exactly, but it wasn't normal either. His decathalamus felt particularly sore. But it wasn't so bad, for all of that.

"Something tells me I'm not going to get an invitation to go with you," said Jack, when they reached their destination.

The Doctor hesitated. "Do you want one?" he asked finally.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You could start building a new team for yourself."

"Same goes for you, Doctor."

"Bah," said the Doctor, not quite as dismissively as he would have liked. "I've got this old girl," he said, patting the TARDIS fondly.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Huh."

"I—" The Doctor sighed. "I'm sorry Jack. I'm not—not at the moment—I can't."

Jack nodded. "Okay," he said simply.

"But you, Jack," the Doctor continued, "you've got a world to protect, and the Carnival of Griganath about to start, and somewhere in the city there's a Xaresian Second Minister who's probably facing at least a couple of years of exile on this planet. I seem to recall you saying that you got on rather well with hir?"

Jack gave him a half-grin for that. "Yeah, I suppose I did."

"Go on, Jack," the Doctor said. "Cause some mayhem."

Jack laughed and saluted him. "Yes, sir!"

The Doctor raised his right hand to his forehead before turning away, pushing the TARDIS door open. He had one foot inside when he heard Jack call out to him again.

"Oh, Doctor?"

He turned back to look at Jack over his shoulder.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but... you'll be seeing me again soon. Though this won't have happened yet, so—" Jack raised his index finger to his lips, "—don't let on to me, okay?" He winked.

"Ah. That explains a few things. Sort of."

"And also—"

"Yes, Captain?"

"When you see her, say hi to River for me."

As the Doctor gaped at him, Jack laughed and turned away, raising a hand in farewell.

He felt Jack walk away, just as much as he'd felt him arrive—his brain settling, tingly, twitching limbs and joints settling back into something that felt almost like normal. Well, normal until he thought about what Jack and River might get up to should they ever share a spatio-temporal location, and then it was just as bad as if Jack had been standing right there in front of him again. In fact, it was almost enough to knock the wind out of him for a second time.

The Doctor shook himself, made his way over to the console, and set the controls to random.


End file.
